


Odd Blade Out

by justheretobreakthings



Series: Voltron Bingo [6]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Blade of Marmora Keith (Voltron), Episode: s05e04 Kral Zera, Fantastic Racism, Gen, Keith (Voltron) Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 16:46:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16559459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justheretobreakthings/pseuds/justheretobreakthings
Summary: Keith had long grown accustomed to not fitting in. Working with the Blade of Marmora hadn't changed that.





	Odd Blade Out

Keith was not looking forward to this debriefing. He had been slowly growing accustomed to how badly debriefings went for him after half of his missions, the way he got berated for disobeying orders and the irritation stemming from those Blades who were partnered with him on the mission, but that didn’t mean he didn’t still hate it when it happened. And after what had gone down at Kral Zera, well, he was certainly deserving of a hell of a lecture, at the very minimum.

Kolivan had ordered Keith to one of the meeting rooms immediately after he had returned, one where Vrek and Ilun were already waiting, and told him that he’d be there shortly to debrief. He hadn’t sounded happy, but then again, he never did.

The door to the meeting room had been ajar when he approached it from the hall, and he paused before entering, catching his breath to prepare himself to face the others, who no doubt would be harboring less-than-friendly feelings toward him after that disaster of a mission. The pause lengthened, however, when he heard the murmur of voices coming from the room.

“ – what Kolivan was thinking, assigning that kit to such an important mission,” Vrek was saying.

Keith sidled slowly up against the wall adjacent the doorway, listening. Stealth training here with the Blade had made him a more effective eavesdropper and snoop, and, although this was no doubt not the use to which he was meant to put these new skills, he couldn’t stop himself. Vrek could only be talking about him.

“I’m sure he had his reasons,” Ilun’s voice answered him, sounding tired, worn.

“Well, whatever those reasons were, they weren’t good enough. He basically undid our entire mission, all because, what, he thought one of his old friends was in danger? This is war. We areall _always_  in danger. It doesn’t excuse anything.”

“I understand that. And I’m certain Kolivan will take disciplinary action.”

“He never does. Every other mission that kit goes on, he practically sabotages it. If this keeps up, Kolivan is eventually going to run out of operatives willing to work with him. He refuses to follow orders, he never seems to grasp the Blade’s policies – ”

“I will admit that the boy is – ”

“That’s part of it, isn’t it? He’s a boy. A  _child_. Of course he’s going to be irresponsible, and that’s a problem that Kolivan should have foreseen. Not to mention that he’s a half-breed.”

Keith grimaced, setting his jaw as Vrek continued, “You know as well as I do how unstable they are. How unpredictable. All the investigation we’ve done into Lotor is proof enough of that. And now those paladins are on that ‘prince’s’ side too, aren’t they.”

“The paladins of Voltron are our allies, Vrek. They’re due some good faith on our part.”

“The paladins of Voltron are also the reason the Blade is stuck with that little mutt.”

There were a few seconds of silence before Ilun said, voice dark, “You oughtn’t use language like that.”

“And Kolivan oughtn’t take on charity cases for the sake of getting on Voltron’s good side, yet here we are. And it’s the operatives who are forced to work with him who suffer the consequences of it. And Kolivan does nothing about it but scold him like a misbehaving pet. It’s pathetic.”

Keith couldn’t stand to listen to any more of this. With a huff of breath, he steeled himself and entered the room. Both Ilun and Vrek turned to him and kept their gazes on him as he strode through the door and took a seat. They both were silent, and Keith couldn’t tell if they realized he had been eavesdropping; both still had their masks up, and honestly, even if they didn’t, Keith probably wouldn’t have been able to read their expressions. The Blades were all experts at appearing professionally impassive.

All except him, that is.

There was a dead, strained silence in the room for the next few doboshes before Kolivan joined them for their debriefing. Keith sat through it stiffly, half-listening and staring dead ahead at Kolivan as he dressed Keith down for everything that had gone wrong at Kral Zera, for putting himself in danger, for ruining their plan, for disobeying orders. Going through the checklist of everything Keith needed to be lectured about after every mission.

All the while, Keith kept his expression as neutral as possible. He nodded when Kolivan asked if he understood what he had done wrong, and when the leader declared that Keith was not allowed on any missions for the next movement, he could have sworn Vrek stiffened beside him. Probably irritated by the leniency of that punishment.

Only when they were dismissed did Keith realize how difficult he’d found it to breathe in that meeting room, and he hurried back to his quarters in record to be alone, find his equilibrium, and try and fail to forget what Vrek and Ilun had been saying about him.

Keith wasn’t stupid. He knew that he was the youngest and smallest and least experienced of the Blades of Marmora. But he had thought that he was here for good reason. He’d thought that Kolivan saw potential in him, and that he had value on these missions he was assigned. He’d thought maybe he could grow to belong here.

But now that he thought about it, it  _was_  strange. The Blade of Marmora hosted some of the universe’s most elite fighters, whom he was biologically incapable of keeping up with in terms of size and strength, and yet he was here. He almost never got through a mission without being scolded during or afterward for something or another that he had done wrong, and yet his membership seemed in no danger of being revoked.

Was Vrek right? Was Kolivan only keeping him around in an effort to keep the Blade in Voltron’s good graces? Or worse, out of pity for Keith?

The thought made him nauseous.

Since he was stuck inside the Blade headquarters for the next movement, he had plenty of time to let the thoughts fester. As much as he tried not to care what other people thought of him, he couldn’t help himself. And besides, the Blade of Marmora was a team, a unit working as one. Wasn’t it important that one’s teammates thought well of them, respected them?

He’d already made the mistake of starting to take for granted that he might have had that with Voltron, and that had only ended with him making a mess and leaving a legacy of disappointment behind.

Here at the Blade, though, he was starting to wonder if he even had that. At least disappointing people meant they’d had reason to have some sort of expectations to begin with, and with the Blade…

Vrek hadn’t sounded disappointed in him when he’d talked about his failure at Kral Zera. He’d sounded irritated. And tired. Like someone unhappy to have been proven right.

And it wasn’t just Vrek and Ilun, either. He’d said that Kolivan was running out of Blades who were willing to go on missions with him – the opinions Vrek held toward Keith must have been more common than he’d realized.

He was so used to people brushing him aside, from years of it in schools and group homes and foster families, that he didn’t even notice it happening anymore. Like a mild but ever-present ache that a person learns to simply live with and ignore. But now, he was beginning to notice. He noticed that he was one of the only Blades who spent his meal in total silence. He noticed how difficult it was to find a reluctant sparring partner for training. He noticed those occasions when conversations would drop when he entered a room, and only now did he realize it was because he was the topic of discussion.

Keith thought he would have grown numb to this sort of thing by now, but somehow, he hadn’t. It still stung.

And it all came to a head just a few quintants after his ban on joining missions had been lifted, and he had been ordered to the common training deck for partner work with the blades. The exercise required the agents to disarm one another, something that Keith had been more than adept at against his Voltron teammates, and for which he could usually hold his own against other Blades, but he was struggling with the exercise today.

It may have had something to do with his assigned partner.

“Watch yourself, boy,” Vrek grunted as he managed to strike Keith in the side for what felt like the fiftieth time since the training had begun. “If you’re this slow at dodging, it won’t be long before you find yourself killed in the middle of a mission.”

Keith scowled up at him. What was it with the other Blades constantly telling him he was going to get killed? He was starting to develop the grim suspicion that some of them wished it  _would_  happen.

Well, he’d be damned if he gave them the satisfaction.

“Just focus on your own defense,” he growled as he lunged at Vrek, nearly losing his balance when the latter slid deftly out of the way and brought his own blade swinging around, which Keith hastily blocked.

“ _My_  defense is more than adequate,” Vrek said. “I’m not the one Kolivan has had to pull out of the fire more than once.”

Keith grit his teeth, ducking away from another swing of Vrek’s blade. “Then you ought to leave the scolding to Kolivan. Apparently I’m  _his_  ‘pet’, aren’t I – not yours.”

He thrust his sword toward Vrek again, only to have it parried away and knocked from his hand. Vrek tilted his head, pausing the spar as Keith fetched his blade and caught his breath. “Ah,” he said. His tone gave away nothing, and his face couldn’t either, covered as it was by his mask. “So you  _were_  eavesdropping on myself and Ilun.”

“For a Blade of Marmora, you weren’t exactly being stealthy,” Keith replied.

“Hm.” Vrek lifted his blade again. “Well, if you expect me to be remorseful for anything I said, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. I’ve said nothing that wasn’t true.”

Keith let out a long breath through his nose before straightening and lifting his own blade to cross with Vrek’s, the stance to open a new spar. “Could you just shut up and fight?”

“Strange,” Vrek said. He whipped his blade away first and swung it low; Keith barely managed to jump back. “Mere quintants ago you were so eager to listen in, and now suddenly you don’t want to hear what I have to say?” Keith didn’t answer, trying to put all his focus instead on dodging and blocking Vrek’s blows. “Perhaps the pup is maturing. Not doing you much good in a fight, though, is it,” he added as he swept Keith’s legs out from under him.

Keith landed hard, wincing as he bit his tongue from the impact and barely managing to hold onto his blade. He threw the blade up in front of him to block as another swing of Vrek’s came arching down toward him, then rolled out of the way of another blow.

“Aren’t you going to get up?” Vrek sneered at him. “You do yourself no favors getting closer to dirt than usual.”

“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Keith snapped. He managed to get to his feet and had half straightened up before Vrek caught him in the hip, knocking him to the side.

“It means – ” Vrek said, easily parrying Keith’s attempt to stab upward at him, “ – that you’re wasting both my time and the Blade’s. If you don’t want your fellow operatives to think so little of you, perhaps you should consider not giving them so much reason.”

Keith growled through his clenched teeth, only growing more incensed when he lunged for Vrek and was easily sidestepped. “I don’t,” he grunted. “I’ll have you know I work harder than any of you.”

“To no avail, it seems,” Vrek replied. “You seem no different than you were when first you intruded upon the Blade. Still impudent, still reckless, still – ” The flat of his blade caught Keith in the stomach, and he doubled over with a groan. “ – weak.”

“Shut up,” Keith snarled. His eyes were stinging, probably just from physical pain, or so he insisted to himself.

“You’re letting yourself get distracted,” Vrek said. His tone was taunting, almost singsong. “That’s poor form, you know. And here you were arguing that you’re just as much a warrior as any of us.” Keith blocked two more swings from Vrek before one got past him, striking him in his bad shoulder and making him let out a yelp.

“Well, go on, Keith,” Vrek continued. “My words bother you so much? Prove them wrong. Or, you can accept what the rest of us know. You’re Voltron’s leftovers, boy. You’re no Blade of Marmora. The only reason you’re here at all is that Kolivan feels responsible for the pitiful – ” His sword clanged off of Keith’s as the latter blocked. “ – little – ” The next swing got closer, Keith barely managing to dodge a blow to the neck. “ –  _mutt.”_

Keith saw red.

In that instant he forgot that this was just supposed to be training, that his sparring partner was supposed to be a comrade in arms, that he had been wanting to prove to the rest of the Blade that he was strong, that he was just as much a hardened warrior as any of them, that he was in complete control.

In that instant, Vrek simply became every person who had ever talked down to him, every teacher and guardian who looked at him like he was scum, every Empire soldier who taunted him, everyone who had ever kicked him down and told him that he wasn’t good enough, that he didn’t belong.

It may have been true. It didn’t really matter either way.

What mattered was that he was so fucking sick of it.

He was barely aware of his movements as he attacked. Before, he had aimed his strikes strategically as he could, trying to throw Vrek off balance, to reposition him so that he could be disarmed. Now, he wasn’t so concerned about that. Anywhere he could reach was fair game, regardless of the point of the exercise.

Keith just wanted to make Vrek eat his words, to be forced to admit that Keith could hold his own, to prove – to prove –

To prove some point that had gotten lost amid the flurry of blades.

Vrek seemed to have been caught off guard by the sudden force and speed of Keith’s blows, since he stumbled back as he hastily blocked. Their blades clanged together, louder by far than what was typical in a training spar, and they echoed foggily in Keith’s mind as he kept going. Something struck his shoulder again, and he didn’t bother trying to dodge or block or parry any of the swings that followed; defense would only distract from his attack.

He started to taste a vague hint of iron between his tightly gritted teeth, but he didn’t stop, didn’t slow, kept up his offense even as he finally brought his opponent to the ground. Dimly he was aware of voices starting to speak around him, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. It wasn’t until he felt hands on him that he realized the voices belonged to the other agents who had gathered at the commotion.

He struggled only halfheartedly as he blinked away the boiling ire that had been clouding his vision, to find Vrek on the ground, and himself held back, Ilun behind him gripping him tightly by the shoulders, Kolivan with a firm grasp on his right bicep. What seemed to be countless others surrounded the scene, eyes – or, the lights in the masks where eyes would be – all trained on Keith.

Keith gathered his composure as best he could in the ticks of silence that were broken by Kolivan growling, “You were only supposed to disarm him.”

“I know,” Keith answered through his panting breaths.

“Why did you – ?”

“I don’t know. I – I don’t – I don’t know.” His blade shook in his hand as it shrank back to its knife form, and he fumbled it in his fingers while sheathing it at his side. “He started talking and I just – I just… I’m sorry.”

“You being sorry or not doesn’t change the fact that – ”

“Yeah, I know. Could I just – could I go?”

“Keith – ”

“ _Please_ , could I just – I need – I – I need to go…”

He shook Ilun’s grip off of his shoulder and turned on his heel, hurrying out of the training deck. No one made any move to follow him at first, but when he was halfway down the hall, he heard heavy footfalls behind him. A glance back over his shoulder told him that Kolivan was catching up to him, but still he didn’t stop or slow down until Kolivan followed him around a corner, calling his name.

He slowed to a stop and didn’t turn until he could feel Kolivan’s presence right behind him, and even then, when he turned, he didn’t meet his eyes. “Surely you’re aware that what happened with Vrek needs to be dealt with. We’ll have to – ”

“Why did you let me become a Blade?” Keith cut him off. His voice was sharp and toneless, and the question seemed to have caught Kolivan off guard, since he paused for several ticks before he simply replied, “What are you talking about?”

Keith took a slow breath in through gritted teeth before answering, “Why am I a Blade? Is it just because I’ve got one of your daggers? Is there, like, some rule that you have to let someone be a member if they have one? Because that’s the only thing I have in common with any of the other Blades here. Hell, I’m not even fully Galra.”

“You’re Galra enough,” Kolivan grunted. “You awakened your blade in your Trials, after all.”

“So I passed your entrance exam,” Keith said with a shrug. “That doesn’t explain why I’m  _still_ here. Yeah, I did well on  _one_  test, but – but how can that possibly be enough? I’ve gotten to see so much of the Blade of Marmora in action, I’ve joined you on your missions, and I know I’m not – I’m – I’m nowhere near any of the other Blades, Kolivan.”

Kolivan’s ever-present frown deepened, and his head tilted almost imperceptibly to the side before he said slowly, “Each member of the Blade of Marmora has their own individual strengths to offer. You are no exceptions.”

“Like what? What could I possibly have to offer that you couldn’t get out of any other Blade recruit?”

“You think quickly on your feet,” Kolivan said. “You sharpen in the heat of battle rather than let yourself be overwhelmed.”

“So do plenty of other agents.”

“You are passionate about your duties, Keith.”

“That doesn’t affect how I do on missions.”

“You are protective of your teammates, and you do not hesitate to follow your intuitions.”

“And from what I’ve seen, those aren’t strengths. Those are liabilities.”

Kolivan paused for a long moment before speaking again. “What are you looking for me to say, Keith? You act as if you  _want_  me to tell you that you are not welcome in this organization.”

Keith winced. “That’s – that’s not it, I don’t – ”

“Then what, precisely, are you trying to convey?”

Keith took a deep breath. “I’m just – I just – I don’t want you to be making excuses for me to stay, not if there’s not actually a good reason for me to be here. If there’s dead weight – ”  _If there’s six paladins, and five lions_  – “If there’s dead weight, it shouldn’t be kept around. And – and I don’t know if it’s because of my connection to Voltron, or if you – if – if you feel sorry for me or something, but if it is, then – then that’s not a good enough reason for me to be here. And you can say so. The last thing I want to do is… is hold you back.”

“… I see,” Kolivan said after several ticks of pensive silence. Then, he turned around and started walking. “Follow,” he called back brusquely.

Keith furrowed his brow, but he obeyed, moving to catch up to Kolivan. “Um, what are we doing?” he asked, not sure whether or not Kolivan had just ended their conversation.

“Taking you to mission briefing.”

“What?”

“An upcoming extraction mission for one of our undercover agents. I had planned on briefing you for it tomorrow, but perhaps you should get your instruction now. It’s a solo mission, so there’s no need for you to worry about how any other agents may feel about partnering with you.”

“Um – ”

“I do not know whether you want to leave the Blade,” Kolivan continued, “Or whether you simply think that it would be for the best of the organization. For some reason you seem very intent on not believing that you are here for any reason other than obligation on my part.” He reached one of the meeting rooms and beckoned for Keith to come inside. “If I cannot convince you otherwise, then perhaps this will help. Keith – ” He turned to level a stern stare at him, “If you still believe after this particular mission that there would have been any other agent better suited for it, then feel free to continue to argue the point with me. But I do not believe it will be necessary.

Keith frowned as he followed Kolivan into the room and the latter brought up a screen on the briefing deck and turned to look expectantly at Keith. “Can you trust my judgment in you on this one mission?”

Keith chewed at his lip, ready to argue, ready to insist that Kolivan was wasting his time, that he had just seen Keith lose it on the training deck and did he really want something like that to happen on this mission?

But something about Kolivan’s expression caused the words to get lost on the way out. The leader’s stare was challenging, and steady, as though daring Keith to argue. Like he  _wanted_  Keith to argue against him and be shot down.

Well, Keith was never one for obeying orders.

“All right,” he said. “What’s the mission?”


End file.
